'Let's sanction Russia!'

Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries including The Guardian, Morning Star, Daily and Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Week, and The American Conservative. He is a regular pundit on RT and has also appeared on BBC TV and radio, Sky News, Press TV and the Voice of Russia. He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs @NeilClark66

A Palestinian woman cries as she holds her son at a United Nations-run school sheltering Palestinians displaced by an Israeli ground offensive, that witnesses said was hit by Israeli shelling, in Jebalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip July 30, 2014 (Reuters / Mohammed Salem) / Reuters

​Israel shells a UN school in Gaza killing 15. It's the sixth time a UN school has been struck.

'Children, women and men killed & injured as they slept in a place where they should
have been safe and protected. They were not. Intolerable',
says Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner general of UNRWA.

Overall, almost 1,400 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli
forces with missiles and military equipment supplied by the US.
After the latest UN school attack, it was announced that the US
will send more ammunition to Israel. The conclusion is:
“Let’s sanction Russia!”

Over 1,000 people have been killed in the east of Ukraine and
nearly 3,500 wounded since the US-backed Ukrainian government's
brutal military offensive started in April. Around 100,000 people
have been forcibly displaced. On Sunday, at least 13 civilians
were killed by Ukrainian shelling- including a one-year-old girl
killed next to her parents.
What do we hear? “Let’s sanction Russia!”

The US and EU supported the violent overthrow of a democratically
elected President and government in Ukraine, one year before
elections were due, creating the current crisis in the country.
“Let’s sanction Russia!”

Ukrainian ultranationalists set fire to a trade union
headquarters building in Odessa and kill around 40 people. As people tried to escape they were bludgeoned with baseball
bats “Let’s sanction Russia!”

After the illegal unconstitutional coup in Kiev, which brings
far-right, Russia-hating ultranationalists to power, the people
of Crimea vote in a peaceful, democratic referendum to rejoin
Russia. “Let’s sanction Russia!”

A passenger plane comes down over Ukraine – the second plane from
Malaysia Airlines to be lost in mysterious circumstances in a
space of a few months. We don't yet know who was responsible, or
even what happened to the first Malaysia Airlines plane.
“Let’s sanction Russia!”

Four Palestinian children are playing football on the beach in
Gaza. They are murdered by Israeli fire. “This was a cowardly
crime,” says the spokesperson of the Gaza Health Ministry.
Russia was one of the 29 countries who voted for a UN Human
Rights Council probe into alleged Gaza war crimes. EU countries
abstained, the US voted against. “Let’s sanction
Russia!”

Since 2008, it's been estimated that over 2,400 people have been
killed by US drone strikes. The Bureau for Investigative
Journalism says that in Pakistan alone the number of
civilians killed by drone strikes in the period 2004-2014 ranges
from 416 to 957. The number of children killed in Pakistan by US
drones is between 168 and 202. “Let’s sanction Russia!”

US launches an illegal war of aggression against Iraq in which up
to 1 million people have been killed. The justification of the
war was that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, which
did not in fact exist. Large parts of Iraq are now run by ISIS.
Russia strongly opposed the Iraq war. “Let’s sanction
Russia!”

Libya: like Iraq, a country destroyed by a Western military intervention
in which Russia did not take part. Due to Western aggression, a
country which had the highest standard of living in Africa is now
a failed state. “Let’s sanction Russia!”

US ally Saudi Arabia is one of several countries in the world
where homosexuality is illegal and where gay people can be
executed. Russia has no such laws, but isn't one of the allies.
“Let’s sanction Russia!”

Western countries fund rebels to violently overthrow the
government of Syria, increasing aid and support every time the
conflict looks to be coming to an end. “Let’s sanction
Russia!”

On July 15, it was announced that the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia,
India, China and South Africa) were establishing a $100 billion
BRICS development bank and currency pool worth over another $100
billion. “The big launch of the BRICS bank is seen as a first
step to break the dominance of the US dollar in global trade, as
well as dollar-backed institutions such as the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, both US-based
institutions BRICS countries have little influence within,”
reported RT. "BRICS Bank will be one of the major
multilateral development finance institutions in this
world,” announced President Putin. Western elites know that
resurgent Russia is a block on their ambitions for total global
hegemony and that BRICS and its New Development Bank are a threat
to their economic power. Russia is “getting in the way”
in other areas too. Neocons and the West's pro-Israel faux-left
wanted war with Syria last summer to topple the Syrian government
and break the alliance between Syria, Hezbollah and Iran – a
long-term strategic objective of Israel. Russia, along with
public opinion in the western countries, helped to block that war
and to the frustration of the Permanent War Lobby, the Syrian
government is still in power. In short, Russia needs to be
weakened, and weakened fast. “Let’s sanction Russia!”

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.